Transactions using public and private networks have become commonplace. A transaction is generally performed by entities known as providers and consumers. A provider is generally an entity, such as a computer system that provides one or more products or services to consumers. A consumer may also be a computer system, operated by a user who is the consumer of such goods or services. These transactions may be, for example, a personal transaction such as buying a product or service over the Internet, or may be a business-to-business transaction performed over one or more public or private networks. These providers and consumers typically connect to the network and conduct transactions by sending and receiving messages using a communication protocol, such as the well-known TCP/IP communication protocol.
Consumers currently conduct transactions over networks such as the Internet. These transactions are commonly referred to as electronic commerce transactions, also known as “e-business” or “e-commerce transactions.” Individual entities, such as companies, commonly use the Internet to conduct regular business transactions, including advertising their products to customers and processing transactions. Transaction information is generally stored at the company location or on the company system. If the person chooses to conduct business with another company, that person is generally required to enter his or her information with that company as well.
Transactions are typically performed using an application referred to as a browser, such as the Microsoft Explorer or Netscape Navigator browsers. A browser communicates to users through HTTP servers (or “Web servers”) using the well-known HTTP transfer protocol. In this case, a browser displays an interface provided by the HTTP server, and the user provides information, such as identification information (name, address, phone, etc.), financial information (credit card number, expiration, name, etc.), or other information to conduct a transaction. The interface may be, for example, an HTML interface as known in the art, and the user may enter information into one or more fields of an HTML page. This information is then transferred to the server, wherein the information is processed and/or stored by a program executing at the server. The program may be, for example, a script, executable, or other type of program written in one or more programming languages, such as JavaScript, Java, Perl, cgi scripts, or the like. The information may be stored in a database, such as a relational, object, file system or other type of database known in the art. Other methods for transferring information between a server and client may be used, such as by implementing remote objects using Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), among others.
In general, computer systems that function as providers are commonly referred to as “hosts” or “servers,” and systems that function as consumers are referred to as “clients.” Client-server systems are well-known in the art, and form the basis for conducting transactions over the Internet. Servers generally receive transaction requests from clients and store information relating to those transactions. Server transaction functions are generally limited to the businesses that they support. For example, the site www.bn.com operated by Barnes and Noble bookstores includes servers that perform purchasing transactions with respect to purchasing media such as books, CDs, DVDs, and the like. Such servers generally allow a user to order and review transaction information associated with the transactions supported.